{"id":951848,"date":"2026-07-21T21:21:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:21:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/951848\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T21:21:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T21:21:24","slug":"mark-kaboly-likes-what-steelers-offense-has-around-aaron-rodgers-with-one-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/951848\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Kaboly Likes What Steelers’ Offense Has Around Aaron Rodgers \u2014 With One Concern"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Steelers have put everything around Aaron Rodgers to succeed on offense this year<\/a>, Mark Kaboly believes, with one concern. They have added wide receivers, running backs, and tight ends, and drafted two offensive linemen. It\u2019s not clear how quickly or significantly their rookies will contribute, but they may not have to.<\/p>\n

The question for the Steelers\u2019 offense is, how well can Aaron Rodgers keep himself standing this year? And equally importantly, how will he go about doing that? The offensive linemen share the burden, as they are responsible for keeping pressure off him. But no quarterback will ever play from a clean pocket all the time. In those moments, how will Rodgers mitigate the pressure? Last year, after taking a beating early, he resorted to very quick releases, limiting the play menu.<\/p>\n

With improvements made throughout the roster on offense, the Steelers hope they will see a freer Aaron Rodgers this year. Better protected and also more able to take calculated risks, particularly vertically. A better receiving corps will help unlock that as well, and a stout running game will keep defenses honest.<\/p>\n

\u201cA functioning No. 2, No. 3, a tight end they might actually throw the ball to\u2014two tight ends they might actually throw the ball to\u201d, Mark Kaboly observed of the state of the Steelers\u2019 offense on 93.7 The Fan yesterday<\/a>. \u201cOnly thing is, can the starting quarterback stay upright, I guess. I don\u2019t buy [Rodgers] being so slow that he\u2019s just a slug in the pocket. I think we saw him move around enough last year to dispel that\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to Pro Football Focus, Aaron Rodgers had the second-shortest time to throw in the NFL last season, averaging 2.59 seconds from snap to throw. Only Jared Goff bested him by one-hundredth of a second. It was the shortest time-to-throw of Rodgers\u2019 career and was certainly a byproduct, in part, of the need to avoid pressure.<\/p>\n

The Steelers lost two offensive line starters from last season, or at least may well do so. They lost LG Isaac Seumalo in free agency, and it\u2019s unclear whether OT Broderick Jones will be healthy. But they drafted OT Max Iheanachor in the first round, and he will compete to start immediately. They have a trio of candidates to replace Seumalo, including Spencer Anderson and rookie Gennings Dunker.<\/p>\n

The bigger impact should be at the skill positions where the Steelers are clearly stronger at wide receiver. They traded for Michael Pittman Jr., who will give them a much better complement to DK Metcalf this year. In the second round of the draft, they moved up for Germie Bernard, whom Kaboly believes will have a significant rookie season. They also signed veteran RB Rico Dowdle and drafted FB\/TE Riley Nowakowski.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Bernard]\u2019s gonna be very important to the offense. I think he might not come out as the No. 3 starter right now [entering training camp], but he\u2019ll eventually be there by the start of the season. That\u2019s how good he is\u201d. Kaboly said.<\/p>\n

On paper, he could become one of Aaron Rodgers\u2019 favorite targets. But only if the Steelers offense can keep the old quarterback upright<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Steelers have put everything around Aaron Rodgers to succeed on offense this year, Mark Kaboly believes, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[8740,1586,7,5241,6,520,57,2360,426,691],"class_list":["post-951848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-93-7-the-fan","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-football","tag-mark-kaboly","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-trending"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116960066485757834","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=951848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/951848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=951848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=951848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=951848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}